Christmas 2012

The whole Advent season flew by much faster than I expected. The girls begged for us to to do the ddukbaegi again for the third(?) year. This time, though, we all participated. Cheeky wrote a get-well message for her older sister, Koko wrote an informing note notifying what the younger siblings should expect for that day, and my husband and I took turns writing little verses and prayers and stowing away Christmas books next to the ddukbaegi. And thanks to our Montessori equipment, we were able to get away without making anything this year.  We used the math sandpaper letters and tiles from the hundreds board to show the date and several brown stairs were propped up the mantel to hold the stockings as well.

I listened to my children formulate their theories on Santa. Santa has his own evolving legacy around our home. I had told them that the original St. Nicholas was a Christian who did kind things for the poor and that as a mortal, he had died, but that many of his friends and family members became "Santa" for the modern generation. They wondered if there was a Santa for each continent or state and which ones had real beards versus fakes ones. Cheeky wanted to ask Santa for a sweet gum tree seed because she wanted to plant my favorite tree in our backyard. And she really wanted him to explain the logistics of how his reindeer fly. Santa delighted the children with his letters in Korean (Is our Santa Korean?) and explained to Cheeky that his reindeer flew in a similar way as flying squirrels.

So despite the fact that I am not personally fond of Christmas, watching my children's excitement over bringing cookies and maple walnuts to the neighbors, observing the oldest writing letters to Santa and taking down the second's dictations and making sure to leave Santa some Korean cookies; listening to my children ask me to make stockings for the adults in the family so they could fill them, witnessing the joy of siblings giving presents to each other even and seeing the youngest smile widely at the toy his sister wrapped that was already his in the first place..warmed my heart. For the very pregnant lady who didn't have enough energy to do the daily Advent devotions,  hearing the oldest gather the younger ones to practice every day for their family Christmas worship program was pure grace. And when the children refused to eat the danish ring from Panera that their ahpa brought on Christmas Eve because that was going to be Jesus' birthday cake the next morning, that was grace, too, because that meant the pregnant lady didn't have to bake a cake that night!

So this Christmas was very simple but wonderful. My husband and I were married for four years before we had children and sometimes I look at him and ask, "Did we ever imagine how crazy and wonderful and full our life would be with children?"And yet, God chose to bring the Savior into the world as a pure and innocent baby because "the Kingdom of God belong to these."